


Perfect

by destinyofshipwreck



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Pining, WeaPo brotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-08 16:10:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinyofshipwreck/pseuds/destinyofshipwreck
Summary: "How about one for the road," Kaitlyn says eventually, and Tessa grins at her, and kisses her once, softly, chastely, on the mouth."Love you. Good luck out there," she says, and then she's gone.Kaitlyn applies her own lipstick, bright red and glossy, right over the smear that Tessa's lipstick left behind, matte and soft pink.





	1. Chapter 1

Kaitlyn doesn’t have a _thing_ for ferry boats, it’s not a _cliche_ —if it’s a _thing_ for anything, it’s just a _thing_ for whatever situation will move Tessa to press close to her, tucking her hands into Kaitlyn’s jacket pockets to keep them warm in the wind. Or it’s a _thing_ for being outside in weather that will disturb the perfect arrangement of Tessa’s hair into damp curls that Kaitlyn can brush off of her forehead. Or a _thing_ for having a tradition that’s just _theirs_ , a photo on the deck of the ferry across the Georgia Strait every time the occasion presents itself.

Their fingers intertwine on the rail out of habit, and Kaitlyn slides her free hand close enough to lay on top of Tessa's and hers together, to touch her with both hands, and Tessa tightens her grip around her waist and brushes her lips softly over the nape of her neck before pressing her chin into Kaitlyn's shoulder for the picture, and everything is perfect.

❧

Tessa kisses her only ever with great seriousness of purpose.

With Kaitlyn she's never been the sweet, giggling ingenue flirt that she sometimes acts like in lifestyle interviews, but all business, as soon as they're alone; she's got this affect of like exaggerated solemnity that Kaitlyn had never met before. She recognizes it as the product of probably thousands of hours of mental coaching. Tessa's _being present_ , being _intentional_. Being the focus of her full attention feels like nothing else in the world.

They touch all the time when they happen to be in the same city and they're sharing ice. Excuses are not hard to find. Tessa launches herself into Kaitlyn's arms once in Sochi in practice, in front of everyone, and they take turns dipping and twirling each other until they're both dizzy from laughing. Later, sitting on a bench at rinkside, she feels Tessa's wrist lightly brush her hip, and it probably looks like it’s inadvertent, and it's affectionate, and it’s also a promissory note, that nobody could interpret but her.

Tessa visits her room that night, not too late because they all have more practice scheduled for first thing in the morning, and Tessa keeps her hands to herself because of the state of her manicure, but she undresses Kaitlyn hungrily, and Kaitlyn falls apart over and over again against her mouth, Tessa's pointed fingernails digging channels into her thighs, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Tessa never presses her for a commitment or a name for what they were doing. She just flits into her bed on tour or overseas, sometimes, knocking a short distinctive staccato rhythm on the door of her hotel room late at night if they're in separate rooms, or just staking out the right-hand side of the nearest bed to the door if they're rooming together when they bring up their suitcases.

Once, Kaitlyn does make a tentative foray down the hall after midnight to Tessa's room, during a tour that sprung for singles, but when she pauses outside the door, she hears the indistinct hum of voices on the other side, Tessa's, and Scott's, and breathless laughter. Alright, so it _is_ like that, she thinks, and leaves them be.

Tessa never made her feel like a dirty secret, just like they didn't owe anyone an explanation, just like it was private, just _theirs_.

It knocks the wind out of her, though, when it stops, with no name for what they aren't doing anymore.

Kaitlyn runs into Tessa in the locker room at Worlds in Helsinki, the first time they had been alone that trip, just the two of them making last-minute makeup adjustments before their free dances.

"Will I see you tonight, after," she asks.

"About that," says Tessa. "I don't think so. He—" there's only one person she could mean— "asked me if I would stop seeing other people, for him, and I said that I would, so." Her tone is gentle but unapologetic and she looks Kaitlyn right in the eye when she says it.

"Oh," says Kaitlyn. "Okay. Sorry." She swallows, hard, and she can feel her face growing flushed with embarrassment.

"No," says Tessa, "Don't be," and she closes the distance between them in a single step, and draws Kaitlyn into an embrace. She can feel herself relaxing into Tessa's arms, from familiarity alone, and Tessa doesn't let go of her until Kaitlyn can feel that her heartbeat is back to its resting rate and the sensation that she's about to burst into tears has receded.

"How about one for the road," Kaitlyn says eventually, and Tessa grins at her, and kisses her once, softly, chastely, on the mouth.

"Love you. Good luck out there," she says, and then she's gone.

Kaitlyn applies her own lipstick, bright red and glossy, right over the smear that Tessa's lipstick left behind, matte and soft pink.

❧

She unfollows Tessa on Instagram sometime in the following year, she can't remember the date, and there was no real reason, it was just a spontaneous fit of dramatics, and she only realizes belatedly that it would be even more awkward to refollow, so she doesn't, but she falls into the habit of clicking through to Tessa's profile to tap the hearts there with her fingertip like it means anything, and reposts photos of them together, because they _are_ friends, right? They aren't _not_.

It's a relief, to only see photos of Tessa that she subjects herself to voluntarily, when she's braced herself, instead of being ambushed by them, so mostly it worked out okay after all.

❧

Kaitlyn almost can’t stop herself from laughing incredulously in the meeting when Jeff describes one of the group numbers he's choreographed for Stars on Ice: she and Tessa are to take the ice together, and not to touch, not quite, and then take it in turns to dance with Andrew, leaving Tessa alone in the end. _She's_ the one who left _me_ alone, you _ass_ , she almost says.

She’s a professional at work, not a child having a tantrum, and she can handle things, but all the same, she’s lucky it’s a short interstitial routine and they’re to skate off immediately after it with no break for applause. It would have been fine, it’s just a little on the nose, is all.

She rewrites her charity sales pitch instead, so it's all about how Andrew is the best thing that ever happened to her. The charity connection is pretty sketchy (Andrew is the light of her life, who keeps her going through dark times, and orphans living in poverty don’t have an Andrew to lift them up, not literally as in like a rotational lift, but figuratively, so donate today?) and the metaphor is pretty strained, but, she's learned, she can say pretty much anything without embarrassment so long as she means it.

It _is_ all true. He's somehow turned out to be her lodestar of reasonableness over the twelve years of their friendship, listening to her complain about girlfriends and travel and distance, and only weighing in when she actually asks him for advice. For months now he's been giving her a lot of lingering, inquisitive looks, but he's kept their conversations jokey or work-focused, unusually tactful for him, and has left her alone about her personal life.

❧

Sometimes it's still a mistake, the going to look and see what social media Tessa is up to—it takes her half an hour of ranting at Andrew in his room, and half a bottle of rosé in a hotel bath later that evening, to recover from seeing Tessa's Starbucks ad with the dining room table cluttered with Polaroids and a laptop.

Tessa had only invited Kaitlyn to her home once. She got the grand tour, with the discreet exception of the master bedroom upstairs, which Kaitlyn realizes in retrospect was probably full of Scott's things, but who could tell. She had kissed Tessa in the kitchen on the way back through to the living room, and Tessa had kissed her back so forcefully that she almost couldn't stand it, and she had lifted Tessa off her feet and carried her to that table, the nearest clearest surface, and pulled off her clothes, and laid her back, and fucked her, two fingers then three then four, then her tongue wrapped around Tessa's clit, Tessa's heels digging into her back and Tessa's nails digging into her scalp. The rough tabletop was smeared with her sweat when Tessa finally rose, shaking, to her feet.

So, a mistake, but at least it was her own mistake, with no witnesses except Andrew, who is sworn to secrecy about every one of Kaitlyn's dumb romantic missteps. She vows never to open an Instagram story again.

She sends another pitch to Gadbois for the pair of them, almost without thinking about it, like a reflex, and he's disappointed, of course, but for Kaitlyn it’s almost a relief when they're turned down again, like getting to tear up a list of potential complications that won’t ever arise.

❧

Kaitlyn doesn't consult Andrew for input about Tessa until the tour's almost wrapped up and they're all about to go their separate ways: the two of them on vacation and then back to the States, Tessa continuing on another string of tours and then to God knows where.

"What did you tell me last time I was hung up on some asshole," he says.

"Tessa's not an asshole," she says sourly. "It's not the same."

"You told me," he says, "That I am allowed to know what I want, and I deserve to get it, and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault if they can't give it to me."

"I guess I told you that," she says doubtfully.

"Yeah, I think you were nicer about him than the situation called for," he says.

"I just," says Kaitlyn, "I don't want to _resent_ her."

"You don't," says Andrew. "You're just sad, but it will pass."

"Oh," says Kaitlyn.

"You also told me that last time," says Andrew. "You're pretty insightful."

"The poet laureate of bad sexual decisions," says Kaitlyn.

"Don't flatter yourself," says Andrew.

❧

On the deck of the ferry across the strait to Vancouver for the last night of the tour, Tessa wraps one arm around her shoulder and the other hand around her wrist, and Kaitlyn looks a little away from her, but not at the camera either, and Tessa is grinning and so is she, and it will be okay, and it's not the same, but it doesn't have to be, and that could be perfect, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Two friends on a perfect day...", face throwing a kiss emoji, hugging face emoji, red heart emoji


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tessa likes hulking, stupid men who could deadlift five of her but can't keep up with the pace of her conversation, and blonde women with long legs and ruthless ambitions and work ethics to match them. And Scott, sometimes.
> 
> He's not sure where he fits into the scheme of her attractions, but, in his optimistic moments, he imagines that maybe they've known each other so long that he's grandfathered in and doesn't need to become a brick shithouse or an idiot just to satisfy her.
> 
> For his part, Scott likes women who turn out to look like Tessa. To his chagrin, and to the amusement of his brothers, he always seems to be the last one to notice the resemblance.

Most of the particulars of the mistake are seared into Scott's memory: date, time, place, position, the texture of her skin underneath his fingertips; just not what exactly came out of his stupid mouth.

March 17, 2013; London, Ontario; late in the evening; the master bedroom on the second floor of the home of Tessa Virtue.

After they escaped the gala earlier in the night, she had practically dragged him out to the parking lot and into his truck, where she unfastened his belt and shoved her hand down the front of his slacks, on the freeway, halfway back to her place.

"Could you maybe wait five minutes," he asked her.

"No," she said, and leaned over to take him into her mouth.

He's lucky there was no traffic. They're both lucky to have made it upstairs. Tessa's clothes are abandoned in the foyer; his are tangled in a pile next to the bedroom door where he shucked them off.

It happens when she's on her knees on the edge of the bed, and he’s standing behind her, buried inside her, her back arched and her head thrown back, his teeth on the nape of her neck, and both of her hands entwined with his, one of them sliding against her clit and the other on her breast.

He's talking her through it, like he always does, and he can feel she's getting close, and then he says something stupid and trite and possessive about his hands splayed across her body, something along the line of, "Is this all for me," or something about her belonging to him, and her whole affect shifts.

"What the fuck," she says, and abruptly twists away from him, and shoves him backward with one foot to his shoulder. It takes him a few seconds to register what just happened, and when he does, she's sitting as far away from him as she can, her back pressed against the wrought iron headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest. She looks furious.

"I, uh, sorry? What happened?" he says, bewildered.

"You know what kind of man says things like that to women," she says, her face reddening. Her eyes flicker to the door and he sees a momentary flash of panic in them. He's standing between her and it.

"Wait, says what?" he says.

"You don't get to claim a fucking  _property_  interest in me just because I let you in my fucking  _bed_ ," she snaps. "I'm not  _for_  anyone, Scott."

She looks like she can't decide whether to slap him or make a break for the dormer window. His stomach lurches.

"Oh, no. Oh, shit, I'm sorry, Tess, that's not what I meant."

"Then figure out what you did mean and say  _that_ ," she says. Her face and her posture haven't softened.

"I really am sorry," he says. "I really didn't mean it that way. Or, I mean, at all. That's not how I think about you."

The gears of his brain are creaking into motion as his arousal subsides, and it dawns on him, suddenly, exactly the kind of man she must mean, and he's so ashamed of himself for not understanding her, for not having thought that one through in advance, that he can hardly speak.

"I should go," he says, weakly.

"Yeah, you should," she says.

"I'll, uh, call you, before we head back," he says. "Wednesday maybe?"

"No need," she says.

He hastily pulls on his clothes and glances back, over his shoulder, on his way out the bedroom door. She hasn't moved, not even to pull up the duvet over her bare legs, and she's looking at the wall, not at him.

❧

He texts her two days later, on Tuesday night, instead of calling. It seems like a good compromise, and it's also a bribe, because he offers to buy her as many breakfast burritos as she wants, no holds barred.

She texts back "Maybe" with no elaboration, but when he arrives at their usual place at 8am sharp the following morning, she's waiting for him. She's wearing a navy and white striped blouse buttoned up to the neck and an inscrutable expression.

There are two cups of coffee in front of her. She pushes one toward him when he sits down across from her. Her face is paler than usual, and her eyes are puffy with exhaustion, and again, he's so ashamed he could sink through the floor.

"I ordered for both of us," she says, her eyes downcast.

"I owe you an apology, a real one," he says.

"Don't mention it," she says.

"I was careless, and I want to be careful with you, and I never want to remind you of anything shitty anyone else ever said to you, and I'm sorry for fucking it up," he says anyway.

"Thanks," she says, and then adds, "I don't think we need to break anything off, or anything like that. But I just need you to tell me what you want from me, if it isn't this."

"The only thing I want from you," he says, "Is whatever you're willing to share with me. That's it. I don't want to push you, or make you decide anything." She's looking up at him now, and she still looks impassive, but she's not breaking their eye contact either, and her eye contact is what emboldens him to press on. "I just want  _you_ ," he adds, "And that can look like whatever. I don't need anything except you."

Her mouth twitches, just shy of a smile.

"That was a nice speech," she says. "I would have forgiven you anyway, but thanks for putting in the effort."

They sit in silence after that, but Tessa extends her hand across the table toward him and he takes it in his own, tracing the lengths of her fingers, and it's almost like nothing happened. The waitress returns with two plated burritos and a brown paper takeout bag.

"How many burritos did you think I'd be good for?" asks Scott.

"Only five, I'm not taking advantage of you," she says. "One for each of us right now, then three more for me, one for lunch, one for tonight, and one for tomorrow morning."

"Get while the getting is good," he says. "Classic Virtch."

"You're not remorseful very often, so I thought I could milk it a little," she says. There's another moment of silence between them and then she adds, "I'm sorry, too, for overreacting."

"No," he says. "There's no such thing as an overreaction, you just reacted to me being stupid, and I don't blame you."

"Okay," she says. "I just don't want you to think that I think, you know, that you're like him at all, because you aren't, I was just caught by surprise, you'd never said anything like that to me before."

"I don't think that," he says.

"Good," she says.

❧

The contours of  _whatever_  are the same as they always were: it's Tessa slipping into his hotel room late at night, Tessa inviting herself over to his rental apartment on days off for a movie that turns into Scott on his knees in front of her on his couch, his mouth buried between her legs, and ordering a pizza after; it's Tessa giddy with excitement about someone new, slipping into someone else's hotel room during tour season, with less time for him. Occasionally when they're not training he doesn't hear from her for a few days on end and then she'll reappear with pent-up energy that she wants to take out on him. He doesn't ask.

For one reason or another, their travel and vacation schedules being what they are, or maybe just by coincidence, Scott never spends the night at her house.

❧

After the disaster in Sochi, Tessa disappears to drink by herself, and she doesn't call him, and she doesn't answer his texts, and when she shows up again the next day in a state of disrepair she only wants to be around Kaitlyn, who tells him that she's looking after Tessa and he doesn't need to worry about her, and Scott's terrified they're done, and the ambiguity is its own terror: they already talked about retirement, so that's not it, and their friendship is too close and of too long standing to just fade out, that's not it either; he's terrified, maybe, that he's poisoned for her by association with their sport and its failures, that she'll want to pull away from him because the wound is too raw. But what is there to say?

He can't formulate a question for her, so he doesn't bring it up, and she does drift back into his bed, eventually, less frequently now that they're busy with separate projects, and it's the most tremendous relief that Scott has ever felt in his entire life, but he can't formulate an explanation for that one, either.

❧

He's never been the only one that Tessa dated. So far as he knows, recently there's been Kaitlyn, Ryan, and maybe Nathalie—he's not sure, but she's Tessa's type and he'd introduce them if they weren't already disappearing for coffee together at any opportunity.

Tessa likes hulking, stupid men who could deadlift five of her but can't keep up with the pace of her conversation, and blonde women with long legs and ruthless ambitions and work ethics to match them. And Scott, sometimes.

He's not sure where he fits into the scheme of her attractions, but, in his optimistic moments, he imagines that maybe they've known each other so long that he's grandfathered in and doesn't need to become a brick shithouse or an idiot just to satisfy her.

For his part, Scott likes women who turn out to look like Tessa. To his chagrin, and to the amusement of his brothers, he always seems to be the last one to notice the resemblance.

His Kaitlyn, the other Kaitlyn, whom Tessa adores, does not look like Tessa, but he can't be what she wants him to be to her, because she isn't Tessa. There's nothing he can say in his own defence when she tells him it's not fair to her and she's leaving, because she's absolutely right.

His other type is women who approach him in bars on weeknights, and don't look like Tessa, and don't have a lot to say to him the next morning, and don't call him afterward. It doesn't do much for him, but it passes the time.

❧

The second most tremendous relief of Scott's life is when Tessa agrees that they could come back to give competition another shot, this time in Montreal.

She invites him home with her to move furniture into her compact but stylishly appointed new 1 ½, and it feels to him like starting over. He doesn't volunteer to spend the night, and she doesn’t ask, but it's less like a refusal and more like taking it slow.

❧

In Helsinki, during Worlds, his frayed nerves finally feel so in danger of pulling apart completely that he takes his life into his hands and broaches the subject.

"I have something I've been meaning to ask you," he says.

"Oh?" she says.

"Yeah," he says. "I've been thinking about how I want to, uh, stop trying to date other women, and maybe only date you instead?"

"I see," she says. "That's not a question."

"It hasn't been great," he says, "For me, I mean, to see you and see other people, so, I think, if we wanted to keep seeing each other, I would need to stop dating around, and—" he takes a deep breath and powers through it— "If you wanted to keep seeing me, I think, I would have a hard time with it if you were still dating other people. I want to try it and see if we can just date each other for a while?" God, this sounds so dumb, he can't believe he didn't figure out exactly how to explain himself and rehearse it in advance.

"It's up to you though," he adds. "I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do, but if you don't want to try it, I think I need to, uh." The dire consequence of her saying no to him is the worst prospect of all. He almost can't form the words. "Step back," he finishes.

For a long and agonizing moment she says nothing, and all he can hear is his heart pounding in his own ears, and then she  _grins_  at him, and it's dazzling.

"We can give it a try, yes," she says.

"Oh, good," he says, and lets out the breath he's been holding for what feels like a lot longer than the few seconds it took her to say it.

"Your timing is pretty bad, though," she says. "What if I said no? Right before we skate?" They're stretching in a hallway between the locker rooms and the rinkside and there happens, by coincidence, to be no one around but them, but it's far from private.

"I didn't want to imagine it," he says.

"So just full steam ahead, consequences be damned," she says. "Classic Moir."

"If I don't get to kiss you right now, I'll lose my mind," he says.

"Go on, then," she says, and he leans forward to brush his lips lightly against hers. She reaches for his hair, but there's an echo of approaching footsteps and he stops her with a hand on her wrist.

"We'll talk more about it later," he says. "Somewhere, uh, less public, maybe."

"You're on," she says, still wearing the same radiant grin. "I gotta go finish my face. Back in a minute." She blows him another kiss before turning on her heel and disappearing around a corner.

❧

Privacy is no longer Scott’s primary concern when he and Tessa peel off from the scrum at the medal ceremony, split up for a couple of minutes to swap costumes for street clothes, reconnect outside the locker rooms, pick a dimly lit hallway from the maze of options, and start searching for an unlocked office door. Building security is apparently more diligent in Finland than at home, and three turns down a twisting corridor later they come up empty.

“Screw it,” he says, and turns to face her, and presses her against the wall, pinning her there with his hips, and kisses her deeply. She shifts slightly between him and the wall and wraps one leg around his waist, grinding against his crotch, and he gasps at the sudden urgency of her movement.

It's not the first time they've found an empty arena hallway, but what's different this time is it seems like it might not be the last time, and it seems like they have as much time as they need, and the expansive, unhurried feeling that swells in his chest nearly overwhelms him.

"What do you want from me," she whispers into his mouth.

"Only whatever you want," he whispers back, and she sidles free of his hips, takes him by the shoulders, turns him so it's his back against the wall, and sinks to her knees in front of him.

"Just this, for now," she murmurs, and tugs his sweatpants down over his hips, and swallows him whole.

He's so keyed up already, from their conversation earlier, from the thrill of their win, from how badly she wants him, and her mouth is so hot and wet around him, and she knows him so well, knows exactly where to press the tip of her tongue and how much pressure from her teeth is just this side of too much, and when he's about to come, he doesn't even need to say anything, she reaches up and presses her hand over his mouth to stifle whatever sound he's about to make.

When he opens his eyes, she pulls back from him with her broadest smile, which he’s sure is mirrored on his own face. He’s never been happier.

“So,” she says, “Not to dine and dash, but is it more suspicious to be late to the press conference, or to not show up?”

“Patch will kill us either way, but at least if we go they won’t send a search party,” he says. “Why?”

“I think,” she says, “It’s probably already started.” Scott unearths his phone from a pocket and indeed it is nothing but missed calls, increasingly annoyed text messages, and the calendar notification he had set for himself and ignored. Tessa is trying to reassemble her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, misses catching half of it in the elastic, and gives up.

“How’s my eyeliner,” she asks, rising to her feet and starting back up the hall.

"Sorry, it's toast," he says.

"Oh well," she says. "Lipstick?"

“Still mostly good,” he says, jogging to catch up to her, “But hang on,” and he reaches for her mouth and swipes the pad of his thumb across an errant smudge. It’s probably worse now, but there’s no helping it.

"How long have you been waiting to ask me about all this, anyway?" she asks.

"Oh boy," he says. "I'm not sure you want to know."

"Try me," she says.

"Since you kicked me out of your house that time in London," he says. "I mean, since I bought you apology breakfast after. I thought about it the whole time but didn't want to rush you into anything."

"You waited for four years," she says. "That would be romantic if it weren't—"

"—stupid, yeah, I know," he says. "I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to say anything I didn't mean. Thanks for hearing me out."

They've reached the double door to the conference room, and on the other side of it are dozens of reporters and TV cameras.

"Thanks for giving me space," she says, and kisses him again, and pulls the door open, and ushers him through it.


	3. Chapter 3

At twenty years old, Tessa finally hears about how she's a homewrecking slut one time too many, and her capacity to make commitments to other people implodes with the force of a collapsing neutron star.

❧

Whatever she might otherwise have been able to enjoy about being the youngest ever gold medallist in ice dance is spoiled by David's timing and the relentlessness of the gossip machine. She throws herself into contract negotiation for endorsement deals instead—there is solace in specifically setting out every parameter of her involvement with someone else’s project. They can have only  _this much_  of her, and no more.

She deputizes Jordan to explain to her the context for every boilerplate clause in every agreement, and commits to memory the various apportionments of responsibility that they represent, statutorily and at common law, in the event of a breakdown of the relationship.

The first commitment she makes to herself, in the aftermath, is that she will never undertake to do anything again without being clear, in advance, about who would be to blame for what when it all falls apart.

❧

If Tessa knows anything about herself, it's this: there is no part of her that cannot be subordinated to some other interest. There is no reason why she could not continue to ignore the demands of her body until it is completely destroyed.

On a bench outside the Sephora in the Eaton Centre with Kaitlyn, who noticed a sudden hitch in her step and led her there to rest for a few minutes before they moved on, she realizes for the first time that she could make her own body the interest she pursues, and not only its instrument. Hundreds of hours in therapy talking about her goals, believing she sounded reasonable and measured, hadn't done it.

Even so, the dual prospects of a lengthy rest period after a second round of surgery, and the quantum and duration of physiotherapy as prescribed, are excruciating.

Tessa hates metaphors or analogies for pain, thinks they're for cowards. Nothing is alienating the way that hearing someone describe the sensation of injury "like" knives in their shins is alienating, when she's  _had_  knives in her shins, so what's  _that_  supposed to be like?

But she is reminded, vividly, of being a kid outside on the pond in the middle of winter with her brothers, underdressed for the cold.

It's painful when your ears and fingertips start to freeze, and the pain eases off when they do. The temptation to avoid going inside to defrost them under lukewarm running water, which will hurt even more, is almost irresistible.

It reassures her to find that she does  _want_ to confront the pain by exacerbating it temporarily instead of carrying on and working through it—to thaw, not freeze to death.

It's not the path of least resistance, but it is another commitment she can make to herself, so she does.

❧

Scott stays with her when he can, brings her meals and tucks her into bed, and asks her if she wants to talk about her recovery, and looks troubled when she says she doesn't, but doesn't press her.

Kaitlyn drives up to stay with her when Scott can't, and doesn't ask if she wants to talk about anything, just kisses her forehead and eyelids and the old scars on her shins, and the new ones on her calves, and her ankles, and her wrists and palms and fingertips and mouth.

At twenty-one years old, she puts "Constant Craving" on a Cancon mix CD for Kaitlyn, a belated gift to commemorate her rather rushed and last-minute citizenship; it's as close to a love song as she knows.

❧

Scott loves her and would do anything for her, but she cannot interpret his concern for her well-being as untouched by self-interest. It is important for their partnership that he knows the ebb and flow of her pain, helps her monitor inflammation, and knows her physiotherapy regime and how each element of it affects her flexibility, strength, and endurance.

He has touched her more than anyone else ever has, but he would never embarrass her by saying so.

At night alone with him, his hands moving over her, eliciting from her body only precisely the reactions that he intends, she thinks of his hands on her on the ice, drawing a performance out of her that no one else could, before a panel of judges and an audience of thousands.

❧

When Kaitlyn breaks her fibula, Tessa drops everything to visit her in Toronto, even though Kaitlyn insists it’s not an emergency and she has plenty of help and it’s  _fine, really_.

Tessa doesn’t ask her about her recovery timeline or her return to work, or anything; she just kisses her forehead, eyelids, fingertips, palms, and reads articles from lifestyle magazines, the only reading material in Kaitlyn’s apartment, aloud to her until she falls asleep.

❧

Tessa thinks of her body as a glorious machine: she is entirely devoted to its function and maintenance.

It’s also a palimpsest that she can overwrite with any variety of pleasure, again and again and again.

It’s also a gravity well that ensnares bystanders into its orbit and draws them too close to escape, and time dilates for them there from the weight of her black hole heart, and they’re trapped, where she can’t be for them what they want her to be, forever.

It’s also a rocky beach that is itself overwritten on a cycle with a rising tide of pain, which abates, and returns, and abates, and is eroded into a new shape with each iteration, still familiar, but uncanny in the slightness of its differences.

It’s even, sometimes, for the first time in a very long time, identical with herself.

❧

Tessa tells everyone she's been a people-pleaser since she was a child, like it's a lighthearted fact about her perfectionism, but what she means is the central aporia of her private life: she can never tell if she's saying yes to something because she wants it, or because someone asked.

The other shoe finally drops in Finland.

Scott asks her in the hall, where anyone could walk past, if they could try not seeing other people anymore. He's phrased it in the most hands-off, noncommittal way that he possibly could, and he waited a generously long time to do it, but her heart drops through the floor.

She flashes him a megawatt smile—to ease his nerves, the timing's so bad—and kisses him—quickly, just lips, her mouth tastes bitter with adrenaline and she can never remember if someone else could taste it too—and makes a quick exit to touch up her makeup, she tells him, but it's really, first of all, to find a garbage can in a different, more isolated hallway and retch into it until she's shivering, stomach empty.

They skate beautifully together.

❧

What she doesn't say to Scott, she sets aside to deal with later, but it cannot wait forever:  _how could you have posed the question, as if my answer would mean anything, knowing that it would have to be yes, because you asked?_

What she doesn't say to Kaitlyn, she whispers into her hair on the ferry, where the engine noise would make her inaudible anyway, but she hopes that Kaitlyn already knows:  _please don't resent me, I frame every one of these stupid boat photos, you don't have to wait for me but I'd like it if you did._


End file.
